Bridging corporate social responsibility and compassion at work

Abstract

Purpose– This study aims to examine how employees' perceptions of organizational actions, such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), affect their compassionate acts in organizations through employee perceptions of organizational justice and affective organizational commitment.Design/methodology/approach– The employees from 87 firms in South Korea were surveyed using a self-administered instrument for data collection. Out of 400 questionnaires, a total of 253 usable questionnaires were obtained after list-wise deletion, for a 63.3 percent response rate. The firms belong to a variety of industries (banking and financial services, manufacturing, hospitals, education, etc.).Findings– The results indicate that employees' perceptions of CSR positively relate to compassion at work through organizational justice perceptions (i.e. perceptions of distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice), and affective organizational commitment, in a sequential manner, in addition to their direct effects on compassion at work.Originality/value– This study sheds new light on both the compassion and the CSR literature due to its attempt to bridge the macro concept of CSR with micro research in compassion. This is, apparently, one of the first pieces of research in the management literature to specifically address compassion as a consequence of employees' CSR perception.